Donald Trump and the Declaration of Independence.

One of the many “Great MAGA King” T-shirts out there.

Yesterday was one of the national No Kings protests, in which people took to the streets and publicly objected to the way Donald Trump has been running the country, with minimal pushback from the MAGA Republican-led Congress and MAGA Republican-dominated Supreme Court. I live in Vacaville, which had a sizeable No Kings protest in front of City Hall. Vacaville is pretty evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, so it was interesting to look at the Facebook comments: Moderates and liberals all talking about how nice it was for the people to peaceably assemble and express their grievances, and conservatives either angry or mocking, because they just love the tangerine fascist.

Most conservatives are asking, “What do you mean, ‘No Kings’? Trump’s not a king.” Although I doubt they’re that ignorant of all the “Great MAGA King” memes and merchandise out there. It’s been around since his first term. First time I saw it I thought, “No; people are just messing with conservatives’ heads,” but nope, people willingly purchase and wear crap with Trump as a king on it. Maybe they’re doing it to troll liberals; back in my conservative days that would’ve been my thinking. But there are an awful lot of irony-deprived people out there, who’d wear it because they really would like Trump to be king. A right-wing dictatorship, in which they’d get everything their depraved little hearts have ever wanted, really appeals to them.

Trump’s not a king, but he certainly does love to act like a king. Not just because he decorates everything in tacky gold, and wants people to fawn over him him like courtiers before a shah. For comparison I got out the text of the Declaration of Independence. Does any of George Hanover III’s behavior sound familiar? (For convenience I put numbers and letters before Thomas Jefferson’s bullet points.)

The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

1. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.
2. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
3. He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.
4. He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.
5. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.
6. He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.
7. He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
8. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
9. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.
10. He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.
11. He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.
12. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
13. He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
1. For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:
2. For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
3. For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:
4. For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
5. For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:
6. For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:
7. For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies:
8. For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
9. For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.
14. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
15. He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.
16. He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.
17. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
18. He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

All right, time to go through them, and be fair.

Donald Trump actually has the power to (1) refuse “his Assent to Laws”; the president can veto stuff, remember? I may not like some of his vetoes, but I’m not gonna fault him for vetoing stuff. Every president and governor gets to do that. Jefferson’s beef was that George refused to assent to “wholesome and necessary” laws, and Trump has done that too, but still. However, he’s not (2) forbidden governors from passing laws; he doesn’t have that power. (Yet.)

He does (3) threaten to disenfranchise large numbers of people. That’s the whole point of redistricting in the middle of a decade: He wants to gerrymander some new Republican districts so he can hold onto a Republican majority in Congress, ’cause thus far the Republicans have shirked their duty to be a check and balance to the president. He hasn’t done this the same way George did, but it’s the same general idea.

He’s not (4) called Congress into session at weird times and in werid places, not (5) dissolved Congress, not (6) cancelled elections. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is delaying the seating of a newly-elected member of Congress, not Trump. (That’s because the new member would give ’em the votes to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, and Johnson has pedophile sponsors in those files whom he’d really rather not compromise. But enough about Johnson’s corruption; back to Trump.)

He is (7) interfering with the naturalization of foreigners. He kinda has the power to do that though. In Jefferson’s day it was a state power. The Constitution made it a federal power. Trump and his lackeys are discriminating against immigrants based on race, national origin, and perceived political affiliation… which is hardly anything new for the United States; let’s be fair. For him, conservative white Afrikaners are welcome; brown North Americans are not. Offensive, but again, nothing new.

He hasn’t (8) refused to pass laws regarding judiciary powers. But he definitely (9) expects judges to obey him, not the Constitution; his team regularly tries to downplay judicial power by asking, “Who elected them?” Nobody, and you don’t want people electing judges. Forcing judges to become political, compromises them—as we see in every case where judges run for office. Trump likewise wants soldiers and bureaucrats who swear allegiance to him, not the Constitution; that’s definitely a kingly perogative, but utterly wrong for the United States.

The (10) multitude of new offices, and swarms of officers who harass our people? Oh, you mean Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Yep, he’s done that.

The (11) standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures? You mean sending in the National Guard to stop “riots” which don’t exist. Yep, done that too. Gonna do it again. Declaring martial law would make the military (12) independent of and superior to civil power, but he’s not gone that far just yet. That’s coming.

Trump hasn’t (13) circumvented local legislatures and tried to place the colonies under a foreign jurisdiction (by which Jefferson meant the British Parliament). The Feds do occasionally try to circumvent local jurisdictions, in violation of the Tenth Amendment, but that’s likewise nothing new for the United States. But some of the sub-points look mighty familiar. There’s (c) cutting off our trade and (d) imposing taxes without our consent—that’d be the Trump tariffs. There’s (e) depriving people of trial by jury, which ICE does with the people it captures and deports, or hands over to Salvadorian prisons. There’s (f) transporting people overseas—although they never did stand trial overseas.

There’s (14) abdicating his duties by delcaring war on the American people. True, he’s done that selectively, by harassing blue states and cities. But people of every political stripe live in those places; he’s harassing everyone who lives there. Trump fans included. No, things haven’t escalated to (15) raiding and plundering and firing, but he has destroyed lives. Ask all the people whose jobs and departments were destroyed by Elon Musk’s unlawful DOGE raids. Ask all the people round the world whose life-saving programs used to be funded by USAID, which Musk demolished. Ask anyone whose business has been wrecked by tariffs. Ask anyone who’s had friends and family and coworkers deported. Ask any farmer who now has no one to pick crops.

The others— (16) hiring foreign mercenaries, (17) pressing American sailors into the British navy, and (18) siccing genocidal Indians on us (practices they learned from whites, y’know)—are unique to George. I do recall Trump was perfectly happy to encourage Russian hackers to go after Hilary Clinton years ago. But that doesn’t really count as foreign mercenaries, because he never paid them to do that. He seldom ever pays his contractors.

So yeah, I see some parallels. As should you.

Donald Trump definitely wants to be like a king, but fortunately he’s not a king in one very significant way: The only way to be rid of kings is beheading them. The way to be rid of Trump is to vote in a Congress which will actually challenge him wherever he needs to be challenged, and enforce the Twenty-Second Amendment which ends Trump’s reign after his second term. That means we gotta vote for either Democrats, Republicans who rightly recognize MAGA is un-American, or independents who aren’t nuts. I don’t put a lot of hope in those last two categories, but some exist, so… maybe.